Many deaths labeled “cardiac arrest” can be drug OD: a study

Monday, August 10, 2020 (Health Day News)-Americans have long known that opioid abuse and death are widespread in the United States. But new reports suggest that the true extent of these tragedy is underestimated.

A study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco found that one in six deaths due to sudden cardiac arrest in San Francisco people between 2011 and 2017 could actually have been caused by drug overdose I found that there is a property.

This finding “has widespread impact on epidemiological estimates of mortality associated with overdose [deaths]Especially opioid-related mortality.”

In fact, drug-related deaths masquerade as “sudden death of the heart” when San Francisco data is replicated elsewhere, so drug-related deaths are “substantially underestimated” nationwide. The possibility, Tseng’s group said.

Dr. Dr. Dr. Gratter, an emergency physician, agreed that the number of American lives lost due to drug overdose is underestimated. But he believes that handing over the supply of opioid overdose naloxone to the most vulnerable would help control death.

“We need to continue to focus on the prevention and treatment of opioid use disorders, including the immediate access to naloxone for all opiate-prescribed people,” she said at the Lennox Hill Hospital in New York City. Glatter says.

In the new study, UCSF researchers first looked at a post-mortem report of 525 San Francisco deaths classified as “out-of-hospital cardiac death” after autopsy.

A team of health professionals-a doctor, a cardiopathologist, a neurologist, and two cardiologists/cardioelectrophysiologists-reviewed the reports recorded between 2011 and 2014.

This time, 242 such post-mortem reports from 2014 to 2017 were also reviewed on the same basis.

Based on the analysis, Tseng and his colleagues found that 15% of the cases of’cardiac death’ summarized in the table of 2011-2014 were involved in drug overdose, including post-mortem toxicology tests, 2014-2017 About 22% of the group’s deaths were said to have been.

Of these newly discovered cases of fatal overdose, more than two-thirds of the first cohort was associated with opioid use, and about half of the latter half of the cohort.

The team also emphasized that it was often found that multiple “addictive substances” were present in the results of toxicological tests-stimulants, marijuana, sedatives and alcohols between them.

Is it possible to apply San Francisco survey results across the country? According to the researchers, the overdose mortality rate in San Francisco “is about the same as the median overdose mortality across the state,” but it’s hard to say.

Mr Glatter of New York City said the epidemic of opioid abuse continues to progress.

“While cheap illicit opiate use from the street-for example, heroin mixed with fentanyl-contributes to an increase in the overall percentage of ongoing overdose, prescription opiate use in the U.S. Is responsible for up to about one-third of deaths due to overdose of [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] 2018 data”.

To help slow down the speed of these tragedies, “We strive to prevent and treat opioid use disorders by working with mental health professionals, counselors and teachers to detect early warning signs of addiction. You have to keep pointing,” said Gratter.

He added that it was very important to provide naloxone to addicts and their neighbors.

“Data show that this is one area where education on the proper use of naloxone can save lives,” Glatter said. “Family members, important other people, and relatives who have access to naloxone can intervene and save lives before they become statistical.”

San Francisco study published on August 10 Internal medicine annual report..

For more information

For more information on deaths from drug overdose, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention..